When Winter Comes

Riverrun was a speck in the distance when it eased over the horizon into view. Ned felt like it had been years since he’d seen it last. Which it had been. He felt a twinge along his new arm as he gripped Snowsong’s reins, urging her forward.

The first time he had seen that mighty castle he had been younger than his oldest sons, making his way there to wed their mother, with an army at his back marching to war. History has a cruel habit of repeating itself.

Arthur was tense behind him, having grown more so since they drew nearer Riverrun. Ned knew his good-brother’s mind. No doubt Arthur was thinking of what he would say to Lyanna upon their return. From the grumbling sound, Ned imagined Arthur was as stumped as he was.

Neither of them were the most eloquent of men, preferring to show their meaning in their deeds. Alas what Arthur and Ned had been told when they arrived in Maidenpool required explanations.

When Hippolyta had declared that the armies of Themyscira would follow him back to Westeros, Ned imagined that it would take an infuriating amount of time. Much to his surprise, on the following day, just over two thousand of the Amazon’s most elite warriors were assembled and boarding their ships to sail for Westeros. They were only the vanguard.

Hippolyta had also instructed a ship to take the stones and mages required to form a Waygate in Winterfell. From there, the rest of Themyscira’s armies could be instantly transported to the North. The only drawback was that they would have to march down south after arriving, but Ned had been told that the gates needed a sufficient source of magical energy in the land around it and Winterfell was the closest and safest option.

Hippolyta and her daughters had boarded the lead ship with him and Arthur and through some form of Amazon magic their fleet had been transported to the middle of the Narrow Sea when they had left the isles of Themyscira.

The arrival of over a dozen war galleys filled to the brim with warrior women had caused quite a stir in Maidenpool, not to mention the massive dragon. Lord William Mooton had been aghast when he had clapped eyes on Ned and Arthur, telling them Joffrey had told the realm they had been executed.

They had certainly missed much in their time away. Lord Mooton gave them a rough explanation of events before Ned decided he would ride straight for Riverrurn on Snowsong.

They thought us dead, ran through Ned’s mind. They thought us dead and Robb is now a king… Ned found himself remembering holding his oldest son in his arms. Such a tiny thing. A babe he would have given the world to protect. Now that babe had become a man in his absence. A leader of men. A king who had won multiple battles against seasoned commanders whom even Ned might have been wary of.

He had missed so much.

Eventually they were close enough to see the men standing on the ramparts of the castle walls, blowing horns and cheering. The castle was surrounded on two sides by a camp of thousands. Ned couldn’t count all the banners he saw fluttering in the breeze as he circled above, but he knew each and every one of them.

All the houses of the North marched to free me. It was a bittersweet feeling. The love he had worked hard to earn from them was a powerful thing. It made it all the more tragic when they died in his name.

“I think they missed you.” Arthur shouted over the wind and the cheers of the crowds below.

“I’ll set us down on the Northern bank. They’re less likely to swarm us there.”

There was a gathering of dragons on the Northern bank, it seemed the men of the camp wanted to give them space. Ned could hardly blame them. The ground came up to meet them with a dull thud as Snowsong set her gargantuan mass down on the muddied grass.

In the distance he could see his wives on a boat crossing the Tumblestone and his heart leapt into his throat. The time was now and there wasn’t a man or beast in all the realms that could hold him back in that moment.

They ran towards Ned as fast as their pregnant bellies would allow. He tried to shout to them but the words caught in his throat, tight with anticipation and longing. Elia was the first to barrel into him, near knocking Ned to the ground. Then came Ash, then Cat. Soon enough all four were weeping happily.

In the corner of his eye, Ned could see Lyanna had lifted Arthur off his feet and into a crushing bear-hug, cursing him for making her think he was dead. None of Ned’s wives were forming coherent words yet, tears and fervent kisses were their present language.

“I need you,” Elia began to moan against Ned’s lips, stripping at his shirt and breeches. “I need you. I need you. I need you.”

His other wives were of a similar sentiment, beginning to divest themselves of their dresses. An errant thought crossed Ned’s mind as his clothes were torn from his body, the armies of the North were just on the other side of the Tumblestone, watching and cheering, especially when Ash and Cat were finally fully nude. When his wives pressed their naked bosoms against him, Ned felt calm.

It’s not like I haven’t had them in front of crowds hundreds of times already…

Looking over to Arthur and Lyanna, she already had his breeches around his ankles, her head bobbing up and down on his shaft. “It’s been too long, my loves.” Ned said between the fervent kisses. “I have missed you.”

They didn’t stay on their feet long. Soon enough Elia was on her back and Ned above her, Ash and Cat pleasuring each other beside them. Looking down as Elia as she breathlessly gazed up into his eyes, Ned fell in love with her a hundred times again. Her rich, flawless dark skin seemed to glow in her motherhood. Elia’s stomach and breasts had swelled in his absence, and Ned was looking forward to mapping the abundance of flesh with his hands, tongue and cock. His eyes couldn’t be torn away from Elia’s hard, dark nipples, the piercings twinkling in the sunlight.

“If Cat’s tits hadn’t swelled with her newest pregnancy, I dare say my bosom would match it in size now.” Elia laughed. Ned found it hard to disagree with her.

“The Gods certainly have a strange sense of humour.” Ash chuckled as Cat mewled beneath her. “I end up married to two women with massive cow tits in place of normal breasts.” It was true, of all the breasts Ned had seen in his life, Ash had some of the largest. She just had the misfortune to be married to two women who were larger.

“Don’t be sad, Ash. We love your petite tits.” Cat cooed in response as Ned and Elia laughed.

“They’re not small! They’re as big as your head!” Ash buried Cat’s face into her breasts, showing her wife just how big they were. Ned imagined Cat wasn’t too unhappy with her predicament.

A delicate hand wrapping it’s fingers around Ned’s throbbing member brought him back to his partner. “My dear, I think your men want a show.” She giggled. “And I grow tired of waiting for you.” Ned was happy to oblige her. She angled him towards the silky lips of her womanhood, drooling in anticipation of it’s old friend.

As Elia wasn’t in her usual shape, Ned had to be more careful in his lovemaking. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fuck her stupid. With one roll of his hips, Ned urged inch after inch of his shaft deeper within Elia’s cunt. Her eyes rolled back into her head, shivering as her hands gripped the back of Ned’s neck.

“Gods… I’ve missed this.” Her eyes were watery with emotion. Ned took her with care, but without mercy. Just the way Elia loved it.

Ned’s hands were on the ground either side of Elia’s head as he plumbed her depths, ramming into her slowly and deeply. The tight, muscled walls of her cunt clung to his shaft tightly, loving him, caressing him, begging him to stay.

Ned withdrew from his Martell wife then plowed into her again.

“You belong to me.” Ned grunted, looking into Elia’s hazy and unfocused eyes, dulled by the pleasures that rippled through her. Ned forced his breathing to steady as Elia’s near oppressive heat radiated to him. His heart thundered in his chest, but his thrusts were measured and strong.

They could likely hear Elia’s pleasure-filled wails all over the camp, a signal to that Ned had returned and was reclaiming his wives. She writhed and shivered beneath him, her tongue near lolling out of her mouth, moaning incoherent nothings as Ned fucked her.

“Loouuuvvvv yooooooouuu Neeeeeeeeed.” Elia quivered as a climax hit her, then another and another. Ned was tempted to place a hand around her throat, but quickly understood that it probably wouldn’t be good for the baby she carried within her.

Ned ploughed her for an age. Ash and Cat both came to explosive climaxes and Ned relentlessly kept ploughing Elia. Tetra came out from Riverrun and cast a glamour over the North bank to give them privacy and Ned carried on fucking Elia, his hips rhythmically slapping her thick thighs.

“Give me your womb.” Ned grunted as he felt his end approaching. With one last powerful thrust as Elia cried out and wept tears of joy, Ned felt his cock pulsating deep within her core.

Once, twice, five times… A dozen ropes of Ned’s seed filled Elia’s cunt before Ned withdrew from her. His end forcing Elia’s body to it’s own as she shivered and moaned around him.

Ned wasn’t given time to admire his work as he was quickly bowled over by a familiar fury friend. It took Ned a few moments to recognise Fang standing over him, licking his face.

“It seems your wolf missed you.” Lyanna laughed, her voice partially muffled by Arthur’s cock as she lay on top of him, Arthur’s head buried under her thighs.

“I missed you too, boy.” Ned said, before two more animals barrelled into him. Shade and Borgger. His wolf, shadowcat and snowbear were all with him again. Ned felt a sudden pang of sadness that Snowflake was gone.

“Alas, I fear your familiars are getting in the way, love.” Ash said as she rose from a quivering Cat. “They can snuggle with you when we’re done.”

With that, she moved Cat over to Elia and shoved her face into Elia’s quivering quim. On instinct, their Tully wife began lapping at Elia’s sodden folds, eagerly drinking Ned’s seed from her cunt. With a sly smirk, Ned watched as Ash then positioned herself behind Cat, then bent over, thrusting her immense behind up into the air for Ned.

“My cunt has missed you, love.” Ash said, simply. Before she forced her tongue into Cat’s arsehole.

“Far be it from me to deny you your heart’s desire.” Ned grinned, sending his familiars away and kneeling behind his Dayne wife.

Much like Elia, pregnancy had caused Ash’s curves to expand enticingly. Her arse had always been the best arse Ned had ever seen, let alone felt. The weight she gained from childbearing always seemed to go straight to her arse.

Much to Ned’s appreciation.

He felt her whimper with excitement when his throbbing shaft slapped down on her massive, olive-skinned arse. “Ned… Plea-eeeeeee!” She whined as Ned plunged every inch of his footlong cock straight into her silky, molten core.

Ash’s thighs began to quiver as Ned eased in and out of her, surrendering to him completely. Ned gripped her hips and rammed into her again. Cat’s arsehole muffled Ash’s squeals of delight, her arms barely having the strength to hold her up as he soft, perfect flesh rippled under Ned’s assault.

He slammed his cock home, again and again, eyes glued to her quaking behind as it bounced against his hips. Ned and his wives were a daisy-chain of pleasure. He was ramming into Ash’s cunt as she pleasured Cat’s arse with her tongue, as Cat in-turn enthusiastically licked Elia’s cunt. Their Martell wife’s head was thrown back in pleasure, her hands snaking through Cat’s long red hair, gripping it tightly.

Ned laid a few hard smacks on Ash’s fleshy arse-cheeks, making the skin glow red under his hand. Evidence of her pleasure began leaking out around his cock by the tenth slap. By the thirtieth, Ash was screaming her climax into Cat’s arsehole, her fingers holding Cat’s thighs in a death-grip for support.

“I’ll never grow tired of the sight of all of you together.” Ned chuckled, punctuated by the rhythmic slapping of his thighs against Ash.

All his woman moaned in agreement.

“And we’ll never tire of your cock!” Ash whined and shivered around him, every tremor through her cunt massaging Ned’s cock. She was smooth as ice, hotter than fire and tighter than a vice.

“Fuck me Ned!” Ash cried as Ned pushed her face harder against Cat’s arse. Any other words she might have uttered were lost in the abundance of flesh.

Ned began to ride her hard then. Ash was the more dominant of his wives. Sometimes that meant Ned needing to show her where she belonged: under him. This was one of those times. From the sounds that Ned’s was ripping from her throat, Ash was loving every second of it.

He slammed the full length of his rod inside his Dayne wife, again and again. By her forth climax, her cunt was drenched in pleasure. Ned sometimes laughed at the woman from the desert kingdom being so wet.

Her fifth climax brought Ned to a climax of his own, spilled deep within her as she begged for him to never leave her again.

“I promise.” Ned whispered hoarsely into her hair as he fell on top of her back. “I promise…”

Ned was sweaty and sticky from his other two wives, but one remained and he would not count himself a man unless he could keep all his wives pleasured. He eased out of Ash with a wet slop, a river of his seed flowing from her cunt into the grass.

The air around them was close and heady. Filled with the scent of sex and sweat. Ned rolled a barely conscious Ash onto her back, then next to Elia, who snuggled against her wife as Cat got to her knees.

“Naturally, you leave the best till last.” She smiled up at him, her bright blue eyes shining with adoration.

“But he fucked me first...” Elia moaned into Ash’s bosom absentmindedly.

“Hey!” Cat raised her voice indignantly.

“She has the right of it, Tits.” Ash added. “Elia is the best lover out of all of us.” Ned found it hard to disagree with that assessment.

Cat sighed then. “I know…”

“But you do have the best tits, Tits.”

“I know!” Cat was beaming again, raising her pregnancy-enlarged breasts up to Ned’s gaze. “They’re even bigger than before!”

“I hardly thought that was possible.” Ned chuckled.

“Neither did I.” Cat said. “Now come breed me where I can look at my childhood home.”

Ned laughed and went to his knees in front of her position on the grass. “I don’t believe that’s how pregnancy works, my lady.”

“Did I misspeak, husband?!”

“No…”

Cat then got on all fours, looking at Riverrun, her cunt spread and sopping for him. “Then do your duty and pound my cunt until I can’t feel my legs.”

“As you wish.” He smiled and mounted her in one smooth motion.

Ned was finally home. He’d been inside each of his loving wives and they had welcomed him with open arms and open legs. Cat’s shivering cunt gripped him like it never wanted him to leave. Ned was inclined to agree with it.

Ned pounded his Tully wife with all his might. She was a quivering, moaning wreck within the first dozen thrusts. Ned leaned forward and gripped her swollen breasts, burying his nose in her hair as he took her like a wolf. The whole time Ned fucked her in the middle of that field, Cat’s eyes were fixed on Riverrun.

“I’ve dreamed of you taking me on the drawbridge.” Cat squealed as she climaxed around Ned’s throbbing member. “In full view of the whole household. You taking their lady like a bitch in heat.”

“We still can, if you wish it.” Ned chuckled into her ear, making Cat shiver under him.

“You always let me explore my pleasures, love.” It was true. Of all Ned’s lovers, Cat was the biggest exhibitionist he had ever known. A desire he was more than willing to help Cat indulge whenever she wished it.

“How does it feel to be taken in a field as the people your home watch on.” Ned grunted, one hand squeezing her breast while the other smacked her fleshy, pale arse.

Ned’s answer was a wordless scream and a tide of pleasure streaming from Cat’s cunt, bathing his cock in a delightful torrent of bliss and comfort.

“I want to watch you fuck my mother.” Cat cried, her mind dulled with pleasure.

“Gods, Cat.” Lyanna exclaimed as she rode Arthur, her large breasts bouncing up and down with her motions. “You really have no limits, do you?”

“Nuuuuhhhhh!” Cat moaned in response as Ned gave her a particularly hard ram from behind, making Cat’s arms collapse as she lost all strength, falling face first into the grass.

“I want you to fuck me in my old room.” Cat screamed, Ned couldn’t even count the climaxes any more. “I want you to take me in my old bed, in the hall, in the bailey, in the stables, in the barracks, in the pantry, in my mothers bed…” Her list was punctuated by the slapping of her fleshy arse against Ned’s hips as she forced them up to meet him. “And I want them all to watch!”

With that, came Cat’s final end as a rapturous climax ripped through her body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. The tsunami of Cat’s pleasure bathing Ned’s shaft brought forth his own end. With a deep growl, Ned filled his Tully wife with a torrent of his potent seed as she begged him to breed her.

Cat quickly lost consciousness as she slumped down into the grass in a heap. Right next to Elia and Ash, both of whom still recovering from their lovemaking. Ned however, was still hard.

“Guess your wives can’t keep up.” Lyanna laughed as she rode Arthur, who lay on his back on the grass. “Such a pity you didn’t marry a beautiful Witcher.” She sang. “We can fuck all day and night.”

“I remember.” Ned said evenly, looking Lyanna in the eye as she turned over her shoulder to him, daring him to make the next move.

“Lya, remember what happened the last time you goaded us.” Arthur said, his hands moving up and down Lyanna’s pale thighs.

“Oh, I well remember.” Lyanna answered. “I remember that I was able to handle both your greatswords with ease.”

Ned raised an eyebrow as he walked towards them. “Ease?” That wasn’t how he remembered it. From Arthur’s expression, that wasn’t how he remembered it either.

“Perhaps you need reminding, my dear.” Arthur said as he hooked his arms under Lyanna’s knees, lifted her up and rose to his feet. She gave a small shriek and giggled as Arthur held her off her feet. Ned settled behind her, feeling her back against his chest.

“I can take you both.” Lyanna was defiant, but Ned could see the mischief in her eyes. “Any time, any place.”

“Come now, Lya.” Ned lined his cock up with her arsehole as Arthur occupied her cunt. “All three of us know that isn’t true.”

Slowly but surely, Ned eased his cock-head passed the muscled ring of Lyanna’s arsehole, then the rest of his shaft. Arthur had stopped thrusting so she could adapt to them both, but remained inside Lyanna. She leaned back into Ned’s chest, wanting more of his cock up her arse.

“I missed you both.” Lyanna’s eyes were glassy as Arthur and Ned filled her together. “Very, very much.”

“We missed you too.” Ned said, putting his hands on her hips.

“Show me how much.” She kissed him.

At the Witcheress’ command, Ned and Arthur began to fuck her together, both of them thrusting inside her holes with all their might. Unlike his wives, Ned knew Lyanna could take his strength. He felt her well-muscled body run hot against his skin, flushing in pleasure.

Arthur held Lyanna up by her legs as Ned teased her large breasts with his hands, cupping them and squeezing them. Teasing her nipples to make her cream around them.

Lyanna’s arsehole was tighter than the cunts of any of his wives. It took all Ned’s might not to spend himself quickly as he thrust deep into her tight hole. Lyanna was moaning and shivering in delight, her mouth switching between kissing Arthur and kissing Ned.

All three of them were tired after a while. Lyanna’s climax came first, then again. Arthur’s end came with Lyanna’s third climax. Ned’s came with her fifth, filling her arse with his seed before laying her on the ground with his wives.

Ned fell back into the grass beside a panting Arthur, both of them near exhausted. “It’s good to be back, no?” Ned chuckled.

Arthur laughed heartily. “I’m surprised we managed to stay away that long.”

—————————

“So why do you both look so young all of a sudden?” Lyanna asked, frankly when they had all recovered, washed and dressed. She had never been one to mince her words. Ned’s sister had not an ounce of refinement in her, something he was greatly amused by.

Ash added. “Yes, I was wondering why you looked five and ten years younger.”

Ned and Arthur regaled them with tales of Themyscira and what they had done there. Each of the women listened with rapt attention, curious as to where Ned and Arthur had spent their time away.

“I’m unsure if I like how young you look now.” Cat placed a hand on Ned’s face, looking into his eyes. “From the look of you, you could be my son.” Ash and Elia laughed at that.

“Cat has the right of it.” Elia chuckled. “I’ve sometimes felt like a cradle-snatcher being with a man five years my junior, now I don’t know if I am able to look you in the eye while we make love.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with that earlier.” Lyanna gave Elia a slap on the behind, much to the laughter of those around them.

“I liked your grey hairs, Ned.” Ash added. “They made you look more grizzled… domineering…”

“Do I take it none of you will want to partake in Themyscira’s youthful waters then?”

“-We never said that!” Cat interjected quickly, making Arthur and Ned laugh.

“It matters not at present.” Ned said. “Come, it’s been too long and I want to see my children.”

After their tearful and salacious reunion on the banks of the Tumblestone, the group retreated into Riverrun where Ned was met with a veritable tide of people coming to greet him and Arthur. So many large men gripped him in tight bear-hugs that Ned thought his ribs might burst. Harper was the first man to greet him, Ned could have sworn he saw tears in the big man’s eyes, after him came a long line of others. If Sylvie had been able to have her way, she would have been fucking Ned in the centre of Riverrun’s courtyard. Unfortunately for her, Ned’s children were there so he had to decline her.

Eventually they made their way through the throng to a solar where they could talk privately. Their wolves all waited outside as Ned, his wives, his children, Lyanna, Benjen, Arthur, Beric, Tetra, Yennefer and Triss talked within. Once they were in the privacy of closed doors, Jon, Robb, Alysanne, Sansa and Rhaenys flung their arms around him again.

Ned found himself surrounded on all sides by his children. It was a feeling he had missed in recent times.

The sun was beginning to fall over the horizon when he and Arthur were done telling them all what had happened to the two of them since their capture. “Well if these… Amazons… are as strong as you make them out to be, they shall be a substantial asset for our side.” Tetra mulled over Ned’s information with a glass of wine in hand, her blue eyes poking out under the rim of her obscenely large witch’s hat.

“I would have trouble believing it had I not seen them for myself.” Arthur stated. “These women could put the Ice Guard to shame with their training.”

“I’d like to see that.” Lyanna smirked, her arm around Arthur’s waist, where it had been since the moment they’d walked into the solar. “I’ve read about the Amazons in the Winterfell library, the Lusty Wolf called them the most formidable fighters he’d ever seen.”

“Two thousand warrior women are marching towards us at this moment…” Jon said, voice half in awe. Having been a young man himself once, Ned knew exactly where his son’s thoughts were turning.

Alysanne quickly piped up. “I should go out to meet them.” Ned’s wives chuckled, Ash rolling her eyes. “…They might need… directions-”

“No!” Sansa cut off her older sister. “Sunbeam’s much faster, I should go.”

Ned raised his hand as he leaned against a large wooden desk. “Have you grown so tired of my company that you should wish to leave so quickly?”

“Of course not, father.” Both his daughters said hurriedly before Sansa added. “I only…”

Lyanna barked out a laugh, giving a wolfish grin. “She wanted to have her pick of the finest Amazons to claim before your sons cuckolded her again.”

Sansa went red in the face. “Auntie!”

“There are more pressing matters for us to attend to.” Robb said in a commanding tone, Ned had almost forgotten his son had been crowned a king in his absence.

“Yes.” Tetra interjected over her glass of wine. “Like how you got that shiny metal arm.” Ned looked down to his new limb, flexing his fingers. It was almost strange that he’d gotten so used to it in such a short amount of time.

“I meant the matter of the crown.” Robb gave Tetra a stern look -a look Ned had also given her on multiple occasions- before turning to him. “The crown that is by all rights yours now.”

Well he had to broach the topic sooner or later.

“Stannis is the man with the right. He is Robert’s heir.” Ned stated. From the reactions of the others, Ned could tell it was clearly an unpopular opinion. “I sent word to Stannis telling him the throne was his.” He turned to Yennefer. “You knew my wishes, yet allowed my son to be crowned king?”

Breic stepped forward, his brow furrowed. “As far as we knew you were dead.”

“So you were to ignore my last wishes?”

“So we did not wish to lose more Starks to the folly of the Iron Throne.” Tetra stood tall, defiantly meeting Ned’s gaze. “Too long have we been supplicants to southern kings. We would be well rid of them all.”

Ned found himself remembering that he’d had her thrown into Winterfell’s dungeons the last time they had met. “And what will Stannis think of this? Lannisters are our only enemy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did you really need to seek more in my absence?”

Then it was Jon who spoke up. “The Lords of the North and Riverlands are the ones who crowned him king. Robb didn’t wish for it.”

They could not see, how could they not? Ned needed to tell them. “Stannis was Robert’s true heir, he is king by all laws of the land. He is a prickly man who never held great affection for me. How do you think he’ll react to my son claiming kingship of more than half the realm?”

Lyanna gave an exasperated grunt. “The milk’s been spilled, there’s no use quibbling over it now.”

“You are right in that…” Ned took a breath, looking down, the weight of the world hanging heavy on his shoulders. “Forgive me, I have been gone too long and much has changed.” Shame came then. He had been away when his family had need of him most. First with Lyanna, then his father and brother, now with his children.

“But there are some things that never will change, my love.” Cat’s voice was as soft as silk as she glided over to him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, her clear blue eyes meeting his. “We are all glad you are alive and with us again.”

“As am I.”

Alysanne pipped up, turning to Robb inquisitively. “Would you have to give up the Trial of Winter too?”

“The Trial…?” Caught up in the moment, Ned hadn’t realised Robb would have had to undergo the Trial when he ascended to the Stark of Starks. Robb held out his hand as his eyes glowed blue and a sword of ice formed in his hand. A myriad of emotions filled Ned. Though they were mostly eclipsed by his pride for his oldest son and his sadness that it needed to be done.

“Only if you wanted to kill him.” Yennefer answered.

“-Well we can’t do that then...” Jon cut in. “Can we?” That earned him a punch on the shoulder from his twin.

“What’s been done cannot be undone.” Tetra affirmed. “Robb will have these gifts until his death, as will Ned.”

“Aren’t there rules against it?” Robb asked. Ned wondered the same thing himself. Thinking back on all the histories of the Starks he had read, he couldn’t remember a time when more than one living Stark had undergone the Trial of Winter.

“…No.” Triss said, likely having gone through her knowledge of house Stark like Ned had. “But it has been sacred tradition that only the Stark of Starks would take the Trial.”

Alysanne barely waited a moment at that. “Does that mean the rest of us could-“

“No.” Ned cut in quick. It was difficult enough to herd his children when they couldn’t match him in power, the thought of them all having all the powers of winter at their command sent a shiver through his spine.

“Father!”

“No.” Ash affirmed, siding with Ned before he continued.

“Besides, from what I’ve heard, you hardly need them. You’ve all done quite well in my absence.”

“The pups certainly did well.” Beric chuckled. “In spite of certain revelations about Tywin Lannister’s big scaly beasts.”

“His dragons…” Ned grimaced. He had to admit, war hadn’t been as daunting a prospect when his side had dragons and the Lannisters didn’t. Walking around the large oak desk in the solar, Ned splayed out the maps that had been strewn there. “Tell me all…”

It was night by the time they had all finished discussing the war. After a each of them drew Ned and Arthur into their arms, they left one by one. Eventually only Ned remained with his wives in the solar.

“Perhaps we should all go to bed?” Elia said with a half smile. “You gave us appropriate greeting earlier, but now I think it’s time we get properly reacquainted.”

The thought of a warm bed with his warmer wives was certainly enticing. “There is nothing i’d like more. But there are a few letters I must write before.”

“To whom?” Cat asked. “Can they not wait till the morn?”

“Your sister has not pledged her forces to our aid. I shall write her and the lords of the Vale telling them of my return and asking for their assistance.” He had known the names of every lord and lady of the Vale since childhood. Being fostered with Jon Arryn had given Ned strong bonds in the Vale, bonds he now found himself hoping to pull on.

Cat seemed to consider her words for a moment as Ned began to write, looking into a lone candle on the desk that had been lit at the rising of the moon. Ash gave a slight nod, her mouth speaking silent words to Cat that he did not hear. “My sister is mad, and I have a strong suspicion that Jon Arryn did not father her son.”

Ned accidentally snapped the quill in his hand, the two pieces flopped clumsily to the table splashing ink on the parchment. “…Truly?”

Ned’s heart sank when he saw Cat’s eyes. “On the Mother, Sweetrobin is Petyr’s bastard.”

Jon Arryn had been one of the best men Ned had ever known, a second father to him after his mother had passed in childbirth. That he had been murdered with no blood children to succeed him tied Ned’s stomach in knots. “Gods be good...”

Littlefinger died too quickly.

“Then I will write to Lord Royce, Lady Waynwood and the other most powerful lords of the Vale.” Ned rose to retrieve another quill. “I will tell them of the Lannister’s and Lysa’s treacheries. I have known them all since I was a boy, my words will stir them to action.”

Cat placed a hand on his arm, locking her eyes with his. “They’ll kill her and her son.” She said. “Madness or no, they both share my blood…”

“Lysa and her son are no threat to anyone, but I will tell the my old friends of the Vale that I would consider it a personal debt if they were spared.”

Ash was one to talk now, walking out from the bedchamber in her small-clothes. “All this talk of writing to Lords and Ladies and you forget who is most in need of letters. You must write to our children before you write to the Vale.” She said, sternly. “They still think their father is dead. You will write to our children then you will come to bed, my love. The rest can wait the night.” She began to drag Cat towards the bedchambers where Elia claimed the middle of the bed.

“Then it seems I will need write quickly.”

—————————

For the first time in what felt like an age, Ned woke with his wives around him. The four of them were all tangled together in an intricate lattice of arms and legs. It was more peaceful than Ned had been since he’d left Winterfell. His children were safe, he was with his wives, he was content.

Ned wanted to spend all day in bed, but he knew he could not. After rising from his wives, much to their displeasure, he began to dress. They had decided before going to sleep what he would do. Taking Sansa and Aly Snow with him, they would ride on dragonback to Stannis, stopping at Renly’s camp on the way. The Lannisters were the true enemy, that was something they should all agree on. Ned would bring Robert’s brothers together again so they could all face the Lannisters as one.

So with an all too soon goodbye, Ned left Robb in command, mounted Snowsong and began the long flight to the South. Fang and Lady both followed them from the land, it gladdened Ned’s heart to be near his wolf again.

As Snowsong was by far the largest dragon, she took the lead, with Sansa flying behind on the much smaller Sunbeam. Thankfully, she seemed to have recovered from her illness as well as Snowsong had. The horned orange and red dragon seemed in good spirits to be with it’s mother and older sister again.

Icewing, Aly Snow’s sky-blue dragon was near eighty years Sunbeam’s senior and, certainly oversized her sibling. The sky-blue dragon was over two-hundred feet long. Certainly a formidable opponent for most dragonriders. Though Ned was comfortable in the knowledge that should she attack Sansa’s dragon, Snowsong would be able to deal with her handily.

The thought of men and women he didn’t know claiming Stark dragons put Ned ill at ease, but war was an uneasy time and his sons had needed to play the hand they were dealt. While Tywin’s dragons had all seemed small, there was enough of them to warrant his sons actions.

It mattered not what Ned felt about these Dragonseeds, the cup had already been spilled. Of course, if they had all been his children, then that would have been a different matter altogether. Arra was certainly one he could trust, Aly on the other hand… Ned had known her, she was a Captain of the Winter City gangs and had been for some time, they never lived long if they weren’t devious. Beric had vouched for her but Ned had wanted to see for himself, so she joined Ned and Sansa on their journey.

They flew over towns and holdfasts as they made their way south, some were smoking ruins while others had bands of mailed men marauding through them. Once across the Blackwater, the worst was behind. For most of their flight afterward they had seen no signs of war.

Ned thought of Renly when they set their dragons down to rest and drink by a large lake. Their mounts needed rest and their direwolves had needed time to catch up. Ned sat on a rock overlooking the lake, Fang on one side of him, with Ice and Foesmasher laid out on the other. Sansa sat in the shade of a tree, leaning against Lady, running a cloth over Lady Malice, a curved sword of blue Uru that Sylvie had gifted her with before they left. Aly was slightly further away, skipping stones on the lake as the dragons drank from it greedily.

The last time Ned had seen Renly, he’d urged Ned to strike against Cersei in the night. Perhaps fewer would have died that way… Ned shook the thoughts from his head. He abandoned you when you needed him, he told himself. He knew you planned to crown Stannis as heir, yet now he styles himself King. It was true, Renly would have much to answer for when Ned saw him again. His metal hand clenched into a fist. Much indeed…

“If the map is right, this lake feeds the upper part of the Mander.” Aly’s call broke Ned’s contemplation. “Beyond that, Renly shouldn’t be far.”

“Then we should not tarry.” Ned rose from his rock. “We’ll have Stannis to see after him.”

It was half a day’s ride more when they glimpsed Renly’s camp in the distance. Ned decided they should proceed the rest of the way on foot, as three dragons flying towards them would set Renly’s camp into a frenzy, an unproductive starting point for negotiations. So they found a clearing for their dragons to land and mounted on Lady and Fang, with Aly behind Ned on his saddle.

They were maybe two miles from Renly’s camp when his outriders set upon them, twenty men mailed and mounted, led by a man who looked to be twice Ned’s age with bluejays on his surcoat.

Though it was twenty on three, their horses seemed skittish and prone to bolting when confronted with the pair of direwolves. Their leader tentatively urged his horse forward, noting the direwolf on Ned’s riding leathers.

“I am Ser Colen of Greenpools.” He declared, his eyes dropping to Fang and Lady and the direwolf sigil on Ned’s riding leathers. “Am I to understand that you are emissaries of the Young Wolf?”

“I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Prince and Warden of the North.”

A confused look passed over the aged knight’s face. “We’d heard Eddard Stark was dead.”

“Rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated.”

“Don’t play me for a fool.” The knight said, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. “You don’t look old enough to have fought in Robert’s Rebellion.”

“I know I don’t.” Ned said, removing a glove and holding his metal hand aloft, thunder rumbling above them. “I also lost this arm to the Kingslayer and yet now I have another. I wield Ice and Foesmasher, I ride Fang: the Demon of Pyke, my dragon is Snowsong, she’s a few miles back. I am who I say I am.” The group of men began to shift uncomfortably as the weather took a turn under Ned’s command. “And I have business with the man you call King.”

They were quite for a moment. “As you wish…” Ser Colen finally said. “His Grace is encamped with his host near Bitterbridge. We will escort you.” The knight raised a mailed hand, and his men formed a double column flanking Ned, Sansa and Aly.

They saw the smoke of the camp’s fires when they were still an hour from the river. Then the sound came drifting across farm, field and rolling plain, indistinct as the murmur of some distant sea, but grew louder as they rode closer. By the time they caught sight of the Mander’s muddy waters glinting in the sun, they could make out the voices of men, the clatter of steel, the whinny of horses.

Thousands of cookfires filled the air with a pale smoky haze. The horse lines alone stretched out over leagues. A forest had surely been felled to make the tall staffs that held the banners. Great siege engines lined the grassy verge of the roseroad, mangonels and trebuchets and rolling rams mounted on wheels taller than a man on horseback. The steel points of pikes flamed red with sunlight, as if already blooded, while the pavilions of the knights and high lords sprouted from the grass like silken mushrooms. Ned saw men with spears and men with swords, men in steel caps and mail shirts, camp followers strutting their charms, archers fletching arrows, teamsters driving wagons, swineherds driving pigs, pages running messages, squires honing swords, knights riding palfreys, grooms leading ill-tempered destriers.

“They certainly seem to have numbers.” Aly observed as they crossed the ancient stone span from which Bitterbridge took its name.

“Indeed they do.” Ned agreed.

Near all the chivalry of the south had come to Renly’s call, it seemed. The golden rose of Highgarden was seen everywhere: sewn on the right breast of armsmen and servants, flapping and fluttering from the green silk banners that adorned lance and pike, painted upon the shields hung outside the pavilions of the sons and brothers and cousins and uncles of House Tyrell. Roses were not all Ned could see however, there must have been hundreds of other sigils dotted about the camp. All the houses of the Reach. Some Ned recognised, but many he did not. He could spend a day and a night counting them all and not be done. Across the Mander, the storm lords had raised their standards. It didn’t escape Ned’s notice that the vast majority of the storm lords had joined Renly. It seemed they shared little love for Stannis. The combined might of the Reach and the Stormlands had come to make Renly Baratheon a king in fact as well as name.

Renly’s own standard flew high over all. From the top of his tallest siege tower, a wheeled oaken immensity covered with rawhides, streamed one of the largest war banners that Ned had ever seen—a cloth big enough to carpet many a hall, shimmering gold, with the crowned stag of Baratheon black upon it, prancing proud and tall. Ned dared not imagine the cost of all the pageantry that lay before him.

“Father.” Sansa urged Lady closer. “Can you hear that?”

He listened. Shouts, and horses screaming, and the clash of steel, and… “Cheering,” he said. They had been riding up a gentle slope toward a line of brightly colored pavilions on the height. As they passed between them, the press of men grew thicker, the sounds louder. And then he saw.

Below, beneath the stone-and-timber battlements of a small castle, a… melee was in progress. A melee? During a war?

A field had been cleared off, fences and galleries and tilting barriers thrown up. Hundreds were gathered to watch, mayhaps thousands. From the looks of the grounds, torn and muddy and littered with bits of dented armor and broken lances, they had been at it for a day or more, but now the end was near.

Fewer than a score of knights and Witchers remained ahorse, charging and slashing at each other as watchers and fallen combatants cheered them on. Ned saw two destriers collide in full armor, going down in a tangle of steel and horseflesh.

“They’re holding a fucking tourney?!” Aly was astounded, leaning to the side to look around Ned.

“Perhaps they’ve forgotten there’s a war.” Ned said as a knight in a rainbow-striped cloak wheeled to deliver a backhand blow with a long-handled axe that shattered the shield of the man pursuing him and sent him reeling in his stirrups.

The press in front of them made further progress difficult. “Prince Stark,” Ser Colen said, “I’ll present you and your… daughters to the king.”

“I’d be a cousin of Ned’s, I think, not a daughter.” Aly interjected.

“My apologies, my Lady.” The knight said as he walked his horse slowly through the throngs, with Ned and Sansa riding in his wake, the people moving a bit further away when they saw the direwolves. A great roar went up from the crowd as a helmetless red-bearded Witcher went down before a big knight in blue armor. His steel was a deep cobalt, even the blunt morningstar he wielded with such deadly effect, his mount barded in the quartered sun-and-moon heraldry of House Tarth.

“Red Ronnet’s down, gods be damned,” a man cursed.

“Loras’ll do for that blue—” a companion answered before a roar drowned out the rest of his words.

Another man was felled, trapped beneath his injured horse, both of them screaming in pain. Squires rushed out to aid them.

This is madness, Ned thought. Real enemies on every side and half the realm in flames, and Renly sits here playing at war like a boy with his first wooden sword. Ned felt his anger bubbling within him. Would that you were half the man Robert was…

The lords and ladies in the gallery were as engrossed in the melee as the men on the ground. Ned marked them well. He’d even held some prisoner during the Rebellion. He recognized Lord Mathis Rowan, stouter and more florid than ever, the golden tree of his House spread across his white doublet. Below him sat Lady Oakheart, tiny and delicate, and to her left Lord Randyll Tarly of Horn Hill, his greatsword Heartsbane propped up against the back of his seat.

In their midst, watching and laughing with his queen by his side, sat a ghost in an ornate golden crown.

Small wonder the lords gather around him with such fervor, Ned thought, he is near Robert come again. Renly was handsome as Robert had been handsome, almost; long of limb and broad of shoulder, with the same coal-black hair, fine and straight, the same deep blue eyes. The smile was wrong though. Robert only smiled when he was happy, he did not care what others thought. Renly was smiling to be seen as happy by others. There was a performance to it.

The slender circlet around his brows seemed to suit him well. It was soft gold, a ring of roses exquisitely wrought; at the front lifted a stag’s head of dark green jade, adorned with golden eyes and golden antlers.

The crowned stag decorated the king’s green velvet tunic as well, worked in gold thread upon his chest; the Baratheon sigil in the colors of Highgarden. The woman who shared the high seat with him was also of Highgarden: his queen, Margaery. Ned wondered how Renly would ever think she resembled Lyanna, they looked as different as Sansa and Arya. Behind her, sat Alerie, as beautiful as ever.

Out in the field, another man lost his seat to the knight in the rainbow-striped cloak, and the king shouted approval with the rest. “Loras!” He heard Renly call.

“Loras! Highgarden!” The queen and her mother clapped their hands together in excitement.

Ned turned to see the end of it. Only four men were left in the fight now, and there was small doubt whom king and commons favored. Ned remembered the brash young Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras rode a tall white stallion in silver mail, and fought with a long-handled axe. A crest of golden roses ran down the center of his helm.

Two of the other survivors had made common cause. They spurred their mounts toward the knight in the cobalt armor. As they closed to either side, the blue knight reined hard, smashing one man full in the face with his splintered shield while his black destrier lashed out with a steel-shod hoof at the other. In a blink, one combatant was unhorsed, the other reeling. The blue knight let his broken shield drop to the ground to free his left arm, and then the Knight of Flowers was on him. The weight of his steel seemed to hardly diminish the grace and quickness with which Ser Loras moved, his rainbow cloak swirling about him.

The white horse and the black one wheeled around each other, the riders throwing steel as the crowds roared. Ned found himself thinking of the Trident and the terrible battle it had been. Longaxe flashed and morningstar whirled. Both weapons were blunted, yet still they raised an awful clangor. Shieldless, the blue knight was getting much the worse of it. Ser Loras rained down blows on his head and shoulders, to shouts of “Highgarden!” from the throng. The other gave answer with his morningstar, but whenever the ball came crashing in, Ser Loras interposed his battered green shield, emblazoned with three golden roses. When the longaxe caught the blue knight’s hand on the backswing and sent the morningstar flying from his grasp, the crowd screamed like a rutting beast. The Knight of Flowers raised his axe for the final blow.

The blue knight charged into it. The stallions slammed together, the blunted axehead smashed against the scarred blue breastplate... but somehow the blue knight had the haft locked between steel-gauntleted fingers. He wrenched it from Ser Loras’s hand, and suddenly the two were grappling mount-to-mount, and an instant later they were falling. As their horses pulled apart, they crashed to the ground with bone-jarring force. Loras Tyrell, on the bottom, took the brunt of the impact. The blue knight pulled a long dirk free and flicked open Tyrell’s visor. The roar of the crowd was too loud for Ned to hear what Ser Loras said, but he saw the word form on his split, bloody lips. Yield.

The blue knight climbed unsteady to his feet, and raised his dirk in the direction of Renly Baratheon, the salute of a champion to his king. Squires dashed onto the field to help the vanquished knight to his feet.

“Approach,” Renly called to the champion.

He limped toward the gallery. At close hand, the brilliant blue armor looked rather less splendid; everywhere it showed scars, the dents of mace and warhammer, the long gouges left by swords, chips in the enameled breastplate and helm. His cloak hung in rags. From the way he moved, the man within was no less battered. A few voices hailed him with cries of “Tarth!” and, oddly, “A Beauty! A Beauty!” but most were silent. The blue knight knelt before the king. “Your Grace,” he said, his voice muffled by his dented greathelm.

“You are all your lord father claimed you were.” Renly’s voice carried over the field. “I’ve seen Ser Loras unhorsed once or twice... but never quite in that fashion.”

“That were no proper unhorsing,” complained a drunken archer nearby, a Tyrell rose sewn on his jerkin. “A vile trick, pulling the lad down.” Ned had half a mind to tell him that they were playing at war and in real war you took every advantage you could get.

The press had begun to open up. “Ser Colen,” Ned said to his escort, “who is this man, and why do they mislike him so?”

Ser Colen frowned. “Because he is no man. That’s Brienne of Tarth, daughter to Lord Selwyn the Evenstar.”

“Daughter?” Ned raised his eyebrow. It was certainly uncommon for daughters to be warriors in the south anywhere other than Dorne. At that, Sansa let out a whistle and cheer for Brienne, supporting another woman warrior.

“Brienne the Beauty, they name her... though not to her face, lest they be called upon to defend those words with their bodies.”

“So only cowards then.” Aly chuckled behind Ned, he was inclined to agree with her.

He heard King Renly declare the Lady Brienne of Tarth the victor of the great melee at Bitterbridge, last mounted of one hundred sixteen knights. “As champion, you may ask of me any boon that you desire. If it lies in my power, it is yours.”

“Your Grace,” Brienne answered, “I ask the honor of a place among your Rainbow Guard. I would be one of your seven, and pledge my life to yours, to go where you go, ride at your side, and keep you safe from all hurt and harm.”

“Done,” he said. “Rise, and remove your helm.”

She did as he bid her. And when the greathelm was lifted, Ned understood Ser Colen’s words.

Beauty, they called her... mocking.

And yet, when Renly cut away her torn cloak and fastened a rainbow in its place, Brienne of Tarth did not look so unfortunate. Her smile lit up her face, and her voice was strong and proud as she said, “My life for yours, Your Grace. From this day on, I am your shield, I swear it by the old gods and the new.” The way she looked at the king—looked down at him, she was a good hand higher, though Renly was near as tall as his brother had been—was almost painful to see.

“Your Grace!” Ser Colen of Greenpools swung down off his horse to approach the gallery. “I beg your leave.” He went to one knee. “I have the honor to bring you Eddard Stark Prince of Winterfell, accompanied by his daughter and cousin.”

Ned and Sansa urged their wolves forward into the tourney grounds, the crowds parting for them. Ned could hear a faint gasp from the lords gallery at the sight of him. Though he didn’t fail to notice that Margaery’s eyes were focused on Sansa.

Renly looked looked as if a ghost stood before him, Ned could hardly blame him. “N-Ned?” Renly looked younger than his six-and-twenty years in that moment as Ned dismounted Fang. “I-I…” Renly stammered. “You…”

“You thought me dead, I know.” Ned said, tersely. “Another Lannister lie, I’m afraid.”

The wheels in Renly’s head were turning, then he seemed to realise all eyes were on him. “I’m glad to see you alive and well, my friend…” He was almost sincere.

Where were you when I needed you? Running into the arms of the Tyrells.

“Then I hope we should be able to talk as friends, my lord.” Ned bit his tongue. It wouldn’t do to insult the man he came to negotiate with.

“Your Grace,” Brienne the Blue corrected sharply. “And you should kneel when you approach the king.”

“The distance between a lord and a grace is a small one, my lady,” Ned said. “Lord Renly wears a crown, as does his brother, and my son, and Joffrey... If you wish, we may stand here arguing what honors and titles are rightly due to each until winter comes, but it strikes me that we have more pressing matters to consider.”

Some of Renly’s lords bristled at that, but the king only laughed. “Well said, Ned. There will be time enough for graces when these wars are done. Tell me, you say your son wears a crown, are you not King in the North?”

“I have no desire for crowns or thrones.” Ned answered. He needed to speak to Renly privately, out in the open, he’d never be able to discuss Stannis’ claim and why Renly was trying to usurp his older brother.

“But it seems your son does, or maybe it’s his Targaryen bride.” Renly chuckled. “What has your son done with the Kingslayer?”

“Jaime Lannister is held prisoner at Riverrun.” Ned could hardly believe it when his sons had told him they’d managed to capture the Kingslayer. Ned had been half a mind to visit him before he left, but had more pressing concerns.

“Still alive?” Lord Mathis Rowan seemed dismayed.

Bemused, Renly said, “It would seem the direwolf is gentler than the lion.”

“Gentler than the Lannisters,” murmured Lady Oakheart with a bitter smile, “is drier than the sea.”

“I call it weak.” Lord Randyll Tarly had a short, bristly grey beard and a reputation for blunt speech. “No disrespect to you, Prince Stark, but it would have been more seemly had Lord Robb come to lay down his crown before the king himself, rather than hiding away.”

“My son is fighting a war.” Ned replied to the Reacher lord sternly. “Not playing at one.”

Renly grinned. “Go softly, Lord Randyll, I fear the Quiet Wolf still has more than enough bite for you.” He summoned a steward in the livery of Storm’s End. “Prince Stark and his companions shall have my own pavilion, and see that they have every comfort. Since Lord Caswell has been so kind as to give me use of his castle, I have no need of it. Ned, when you are rested, I would be honored if you would share our meat and mead at the feast Lord Caswell is giving us tonight. A farewell feast. I fear his lordship is eager to see the heels of my hungry horde.”

“Not true, Your Grace,” protested a wispy young man who must have been Caswell. “What is mine is yours.”

“Whenever someone said that to my brother Robert, he took them at their word,” Renly said. “Do you have daughters?”

“Yes, Your Grace. Two.”

“Then thank the gods that I am not Robert. My sweet queen is all the woman I desire.” Renly held out his hand to help Margaery to her feet. “We’ll talk again when you’ve had a chance to refresh yourself, Ned.” Just before Renly made his exit he turned back. “…I am truly glad that you are alive, Ned…”

Before Ned could answer Renly led his bride back toward the castle while his steward conducted Ned, Sansa and Aly to the king’s green silk pavilion. “If you have need of anything, you have only to ask.”

“Our dragons will be arriving in our wake.” Ned told the steward. “Please inform all the watchmen and have appropriate food brought to them when they land.” The steward left to carry out Ned’s wishes and he turned to see the abode Renly had gifted them.

The pavilion was larger than the common rooms of many an inn and furnished with every comfort: feather mattress and sleeping furs, a wood-and-copper tub large enough for two, braziers, to keep off the night’s chill, slung leather camp chairs, a writing table with quills and inkpot, bowls of peaches, plums, and pears, a flagon of wine with a set of matched silver cups, cedar chests packed full of Renly’s clothing, books, maps, game boards, a high harp, a tall bow and a quiver of arrows, a pair of red-tailed hunting hawks and a veritable armory of weapons. In the south they were considered finely made, but Dorrk wouldn’t have called them fit for scrap metal.

Small wonder this host moves so slowly.

“He can’t possibly have a use for all this tat.” Aly was astounded as she looked around, leaning on her weirwood cane.

Sansa added. “I half expect to find a gold-plated chamber pot lying around.”

There were partitioned sections to the pavilion where each of them were able to privately wash and clothe themselves in appropriate garb of a feast. When they were dressed, they made their way to the castle together, leaving Fang and Lady by the pavilion.

The great hall of Lord Caswell’s keep could hardly be called great at all, it was smaller than Winterfell’s main armoury. Even so, it seemed every knight in Renly’s army had managed to squeeze themselves onto the long wooden benches of the hall. Ned had been given a place on the dais between Aly and Lord Mathis Rowan. Sansa had apparently been requested by Queen Margaery herself to be placed next to her.

Brienne of Tarth had been seated at the far end of the high table. She did not gown herself as a lady, but chose a knight’s finery instead, a velvet doublet quartered rose-andazure, breeches and boots and a fine-tooled swordbelt, her new rainbow cloak flowing down her back. Out of armor, her body seemed ungainly, broad of hip and thick of limb, with hunched muscular shoulders but no bosom to speak of. And it was clear from her every action that Brienne knew it, and suffered for it. She spoke only in answer, and seldom lifted her gaze from her food. Ned felt a swell of pity in his heart for the girl.

Perhaps I should introduce her to the Amazons…

Of food there was plenty, so much so that Ned imagined they had to be burning through their food supplies at a ridiculous rate. Such excess in wartime was unconscionable to Ned. During the rebellion, they never held a feast. The closest they had gotten were the celebrations after victories and even then they had been soured by the scores of wounded, dead and dying. From the look on Aly’s face, Ned knew she felt the same as he as she tried to rebuff the advances of a Fossoway knight sitting next to her, hoping to woo a dragonrider.

Being unable to stomach foods in front of him as the realm bled, Ned ate sparingly, and watched Renly. The man who would be king sat with his young bride on his left hand and her brother on the right. Apart from the white linen bandage around his brow, Ser Loras seemed none the worse for the day’s misadventures.

From time to time, Renly would feed Margaery some choice morsel off the point of his dagger, or lean over to plant the lightest of kisses on her cheek, but it was Ser Loras who shared most of his jests and confidences. His Queen seemed all too happy to be ignored however, as she seemed much more interested in Sansa.

Renly’s young men drank too much and boasted too loudly, to Ned’s mind. Lord Willum’s sons Josua and Elyas disputed heatedly about who would be first over the walls of King’s Landing. Lord Varner dandled a serving girl on his lap, nuzzling at her neck while one hand went exploring down her bodice. Guyard the Green, who fancied himself a singer, diddled a harp and gave them a verse about tying lions’ tails in knots, some parts of which even rhymed. Ser Mark Mullendore brought a black-and-white monkey and fed him morsels from his own plate, while Ser Tanton of the red-apple Fossoways climbed on the table and swore to slay Sandor Clegane in single combat. The vow might have been taken more solemnly if Ser Tanton had not had one foot in a gravy boat when he made it.

The height of folly was reached when a plump fool came capering out in gold-painted tin with a cloth lion’s head, and chased a dwarf around the tables, whacking him over the head with a bladder. Finally Renly demanded to know why he was beating his brother. “Why, Your Grace, I’m the Kinslayer,” the fool answered.

“It’s Kingslayer, fool of a fool,” Renly said, and the hall rang with laughter.

Lord Rowan beside him did not join the merriment. “They are all so young,” he said.

It was true. The Knight of Flowers could not have reached his second name day when Robert slew Rhaegar on the Trident. Few of the others were very much older. They had been babes during the Sack of King’s Landing, and no more than boys when Balon Greyjoy raised the Iron Islands in rebellion. They are still unblooded, Ned thought as he watched Lord Bryce goad Ser Robar into juggling a brace of daggers.

It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honor and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal.

“War will make them old.” Ned said, mournfully. “As it did us… I pity them.”

“Why?” Lord Rowan asked him. “Look at them. They’re young and strong, full of life and laughter. All they seek is a chance to prove themselves like you had. Why pity?”

Perhaps you forget I lost my father, brother and a good few friends for that chance to “prove myself”, Ned nearly told him, before settling on a more courteous answer. “Because it will not last…” he said, sadly. “Because they’re the knights of summer, and winter is coming…”

“You are wrong, Prince Stark.” Brienne regarded him with eyes as blue as her armor. “Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”

“Take it from a man who’s drank from the cup of war more in one year than most will in thirty,” Ned stood from his chair, regarding Brienne sadly. “There is only one thing you can be sure of in this life: Winter always comes. Sooner than we would like.” He gave a slight bow and left the feasting hall for some air.

Ned was walking through and empty corridor when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He barely had time to turn before Alerie was mashing her lips against his, grabbing at his tunic with unbridled lust.

“I thought you dead…” She whispered between kisses as she backed him against a wall, then a door into what seemed to be an empty solar. There was a large oaken desk in the middle of the room with eight chairs around it. “I thought I was dreaming when I saw you on your wolf. Take me.” Alerie whimpered, her hands shaking as they unlaced her dress. “Please take me. I need you.”

“Then you shall have me.” Ned said, throwing a magical fireball into the solar’s hearth, bathing the room in a warm orange glow.

Alerie was nearly down to her small-clothes when he turned back to her, slipping her dress over her wide hips. Ned tried to admire the soft expanse of her place flesh, but she was on him like a ravenous beast, attacking the bindings of his tunic.

First the tunic went, then his shirt, breeches and smallclothes. Somewhere along the way Alerie had lost hers too. The two were locked in an impassioned embrace, pressing their naked bodies together. With an animalistic grunt, Ned turned Alerie around and pressed her curvy body flat against the wooden table, her large breasts spreading out to either side of her torso.

After hundreds of times together, she instinctively knew what to do. With a cat-like pur, Alerie spread her legs wide and arched her back. The twin immense globes of her arse cheeks were presented to Ned, quivering in anticipation. He gave her a few hard smacks to remind her body what it was in for, making her mewl like a kitten.

Not satisfied with waiting anymore, Ned took his throbbing member in hand, angled himself towards her womanhood before slamming every inch of his cock into her from behind. From the sound Alerie made, you’d have thought she had been kicked by a horse.

“AH! Ned! Fuck!" she moaned, hands bracing against the hard wooden table as it rocked beneath them, Ned ramming into her from behind. With another hard smack against her arse, Ned reached up and took a firm grasp of Alerie’s Valyrian silver hair.

“You wanted me to take you.” Ned chuckled, furiously thrusting into Alerie’s tight, molten depths. Every inch of her cunt massaged his cock, begging him to seed her womb again.

“More!” She whined as Ned pressed his much larger body against her back, her large breasts bouncing madly on her chest, rosy nipples achingly hard. “More! Please!”

“You always were a whore.” Ned growled into the back of Alerie’s neck, his hips smacking against hers like the thundering hooves of a runaway horse.

"YES!" She screamed, her cunt shivering around him as Ned’s rutting forced her to submit in pleasure. “Your whore! Yours!”

“Keep it down.” Ned pressed Alerie’s head down to the table, trying to muffle her cries. “Or do you want the whole castle to know their queen’s mother is more wanton than a back-alley whore?”

Alerie’s response was an incoherent moan as her pleasure overwhelmed her. Her moans and the loud slaps of Ned’s hips against her meaty arse echoed off the hard stone walls of the solar, bouncing back on them.

Ned thought it sounded an awful lot like a whorehouse. Alerie’s womanhood was clenching him so tightly Ned thought he might die. It would have been a happy death. His release came hard and fast, with his metal hand squeezing Alerie’s succulent breasts for all their worth, Ned slammed every inch of his cock deep into her shuddering cunt.

A great wave of his seed filled her in the following moments, then another… and another… The final one triggering another climax from Alerie, drawing shaky breaths as Ned held her upright, her eyes heavy and dreamy.

But Ned was still hard…

He roughly withdrew from Alerie, then flung the woman onto her back. The sight of her large breasts bouncing from the movement was pleasant indeed and one Ned had missed.

“Your stamina is a gift from the gods.” Alerie said lazily, wrapping her legs around Ned’s waist as he eased back into her loosened cunt. “No matter how hard you fuck me -and any other women with me- you are always ready for more.”

“When i’m with a woman as beautiful as you, can you blame me?” Ned smiled before leaning down to claim her lips with his, pressing deeper within her as her pillowy breasts cushioned his chest.

“AhhAHhh!” Alerie’s no-doubt intendedly witty response came out as a breathy moan as Ned ploughed her.

The golden light from the hearth danced over Alerie’s pale skin, casting writhing shadows on the wall of the solar. Ned could see Alerie‘s eyes had lost all focus some time ago. Her mind was gone, her body drowning in a tide of euphoria, sweeping her away to a blessed climax. Her legs were hooked tightly around his hips, keeping his as close as possible.

Ned saw Alerie’s eyes rolling back into her head as she shivered from the pleasure of his cock steadily pounding in and out of her, like a battering ram knocking on the door of her keep. And Ned was surely about to come into her castle.

“Whatever would your men say if they saw you now?” Ned growled into her face. “What would your husband?”

That did it.

A mind-numbing, toe-curling, world-ending climax shook the very foundations of Alerie’s being. The sights and sensations of his lover’s momentous end brought Ned to his own. He made sure every single drop of his seed was deposited deep inside her, then withdrew and flopped down beside her on the table.

Their fucking had been frantic and frenzied, the way lovemaking between old lovers who’d been apart often was. Alerie lay on her back, her silver hair plastered to her face with sweat, panting and shivering with the aftershocks of her pleasure. Ned lay on his back beside her, basking in their afterglow and enjoying the release of the tension that had coiled within him.

“I never took you for a vain man.” Ned turned to see Alerie looking up at him, running her hand over his beard.

“What?”

“This illusion.” Alerie stroked his face. “You don’t need it.”

“It’s not an illusion.” Ned said, then regaled her with the tale of his and Arthur’s discovery of Themyscira and the rejuvenating waters it had.

Alerie seemed quite surprised. “…Would they be willing to let others use their waters too?” She asked.

“I’m sure I would be able to manage it.” Ned smiled, rolling over Alerie and kissing along her jaw as she giggled. “Given the right motivation.”

“Then you shall have all the motivation you require, my dear Ned.” She laughed. “But not right now, we’ve already been gone from the feast too long.”

She was right, Ned knew. Begrudgingly, they cleaned themselves up and redressed before leaving the solar and making their way back to the main hall. On their way back they bumped into Sansa with Margaery on one arm and a Caswell daughter on the other. All three of them had mussed up hair and flushed cheeks. The tight shriek Margaery gave when she saw them told Ned all he needed to know about what they had been doing.

“Marg-sweetling…” Alerie said, her voice tight. “I-I was was just getting some air when I bumped into Prince Stark.” She might have been more convincing if her voice hadn’t been three octaves higher than usual. “Being the gentleman he is,” Alerie continued. “He offered to escort me… back…”

With every word Alerie uttered, Margaery and the Caswell daughter grew redder and redder. Ned thought they could do passing impressions of tomatoes when Alerie was done.

Ned only needed to look Sansa in the eye and nothing else needed to be said. The five of them parted without another word, Ned and Alerie returning to the feast, Sansa taking her women elsewhere.

“Ned,” Renly called called to him after he reentered the hall from one door after Alerie and arrived through another. “You’re a difficult man to find. I feel the need of some air. Will you walk with me?”

“We have much to discuss.” Ned said grimly.

Quick enough, Brienne was on her feet as well. “Your Grace, give me but a moment to don my mail. You should not be without protection.”

Renly smiled. “If I am not safe in the heart of Lord Caswell’s castle, with my own host around me, one sword will make no matter... not even your sword, Brienne. Sit and eat. If I have need of you, I’ll send for you.”

His words seemed to strike the girl harder than any blow she had taken that afternoon. “As you will, Your Grace.” Brienne sat, eyes downcast.

“This way.” Renly lead through a low door into a stair tower. As they started up, he said, “Perchance, is Ser Barristan Selmy with your son at Riverrun?”

Ned was stunned. “That’s the first question that comes to mind?” You abandon me in a pit of vipers and try to steal your brother’s inheritance and that is the first thing you say?!

“We have much to talk of.” Renly gave him an apologetic look. “Perhaps it’s best to ease into it with something small?” When Ned didn’t answer, he continued. “…We could always talk about how you look twenty years younger and have a metal arm instead?”

“As you like,” Ned answered. “…No, Ser Barristan is not following my son. Is he no longer with Joffrey? He was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”

Renly shook his head. “The Lannisters told him he was too old and gave his cloak to the Hound. I’m told he left King’s Landing vowing to take up service with the true king. That cloak Brienne claimed today was the one I was keeping for Selmy, in hopes that he might offer me his sword. When he did not turn up at Highgarden, I thought perhaps he had gone to Riverrun instead. If not for your son, then his Targaryen bride.”

Dragonstone would have been the obvious choice. “When Arthur and I made our escape from the Black cells, Ser Barristan happened upon us.” Ned confessed. “He let us pass.”

“Then mayhaps he was on his way out before the Lannisters gave him the boot.” Renly said. “I hope he has not come to harm.” They climbed a few more steps, Ned saw Renly sneaking a glance at his new arm.

“Arthur and I escaped King’s Landing via ship.” Ned told him. “There was a storm when we were out at sea, only Arthur and I survived. We drifted to an island called Themyscira. They fed us, healed us, they gave me this arm.” Ned held it up, glinting in the torchlight.

“A fantastic tale.” Renly answered him. “And then they…” he pointed to Ned’s face.

“The waters of Themyscira give both strength and youth.”

“Then my first act after I am crowned will be to bring this magic to Westeros.” Renly laughed.

The Amazons will never allow that, Ned thought. Though he knew better than to voice it. “If I trusted you, I might even help you.” Ned stated, perhaps not the wisest of actions.

“I offered you a hundred swords and urged you to take Joffrey into your power.” Renly said through gritted teeth. “If you had listened, you would be regent today and your men would not have died.”

“Or maybe they would be alive if you hadn’t abandoned me.” Ned snapped.

“I had no choice but to flee.” Renly said. “Had I stayed, I knew Cersei would see to it that I did not long outlive Robert. You did not listen to me then, but I hope you do now. Here, I wish to show you something.” They had reached the top of the stairwell. Renly pushed open a wooden door, and they stepped out onto the roof.

Lord Caswell’s keep was scarcely tall enough to be called a tower, but the country was low and flat and Ned could see for leagues in all directions. Wherever he looked, he saw fires. They covered the earth like fallen stars, and like the stars there was no end to them.

“Count them if you like,” Renly said quietly. “You will still be counting when dawn breaks in the east. How many fires bum around Riverrun tonight, I wonder?”

“You have a point?”

“I have eighty thousand men here,” Renly said, “and this is only part of my strength. Mace Tyrell remains at Highgarden with another ten thousand, I have a strong garrison holding Storm’s End, and soon enough the Dornishmen will join me with all their power.”

Ned barked out a laugh. “You think me a fool?” Dorne would never declare for a king held up by the Reach.

“…No, but I do wonder why you come to me.”

“Your camp was on the way to Stannis, I had hope to bring the both of you together with a common cause.”

“So you mean to make Stannis king?”

“He is Robert’s heir.”

“Let us be blunt, Stark.” Renly laughed. “Stannis would make an appalling king. Nor is he like to become one. Men respect Stannis, even fear him, but precious few have ever loved him.”

“He is still your elder brother.”

Renly shrugged. “…You had an elder brother, you carry his inheritance better than he would have, i’d wager.”

Ned’s eyes turned icy blue as the temperature dropped to beyond freezing, a thin mist quickly forming from their breath. “Think very carefully about what you say next Renly…”

Renly paused for a few heartbeats. “Tell me… what right did Robert ever have to the Iron Throne?” He did not wait for an answer. “Oh, there was talk of the blood ties between Baratheon and Targaryen, of weddings a hundred years past, of second sons and elder daughters. No one but the maesters care about any of it. Robert won the throne with Foebreaker in hand.” He swept a hand across the campfires that burned from horizon to horizon. “My army and my dragons are my claim, as good as Robert’s ever was. If you support me as you supported Robert, you’ll not find me ungenerous.”

“You are not listening to me.”

“I mean to be king, Ned, and not of a broken kingdom. I cannot say it plainer than that. Three hundred years ago, a Stark king knelt to Aegon the Dragon for dragon eggs and a Targaryen bride. If you join me, this war is good as done. We—” Renly broke off suddenly, distracted. “What’s this now?”

The rattle of chains heralded the raising of the portcullis. Down in the yard below, a rider in a winged helm urged his well-lathered horse under the spikes. “Summon the king!” he called.

Renly vaulted up into a crenel. “I’m here, ser.”

“Your Grace.” The rider spurred his mount closer. “I came swift as I could. From Storm’s End. We are besieged, Your Grace, Ser Cortnay defies them, but. . .”

“But. . . that’s not possible. I would have been told if Lord Tywin left Harrenhal.”

“These are no Lannisters, my liege. It’s Lord Stannis at your gates. King Stannis, he calls himself now.”

—————————

The meeting place was a grassy sward dotted with pale grey mushrooms and the raw stumps of felled trees.

“You think they’ll take long?” Aly asked as they reined up amidst the stumps, alone between the armies. Ned had ridden out on Fang, Sansa on Lady and Aly with a horse Renly had leant her. The smell of salt was heavy on the wind gusting from the east.

Stannis Baratheon’s foragers had cut the trees down for his siege towers and catapults. Ned wondered how long the grove had stood. Just another pointless casualty in a battle between brothers.

Across rain-sodden fields and stony ridges, Ned could see the great castle of Storm’s End rearing up against the sky, its back to the unseen sea. Beneath that mass of pale grey stone, the encircling army of Lord Stannis Baratheon looked as small and insignificant as mice with banners. The only intimidating thing about it was Stannis’ large yellow dragon, Baelys. At over a century old it was near four times as large as Renly’s dragon, Stormbolt.

Perhaps that was the reason Renly didn’t want the dragons to be at the meeting.

“I see Stannis.” Sansa said, looking off at the camp beneath the castle where two riders were trotting towards them slowly. They did not carry the Baratheon banner. It was a bright yellow, not the rich gold of Renly’s standards, and the device it bore was red, though Ned could not make out its shape.

Renly would be last to arrive. He had told Ned as much when he set out. He did not propose to mount his horse until he saw his brother well on his way. The first to arrive must wait on the other, and Renly would do no waiting.

I expect as much from Alaric and Rickon, Ned thought.

As he neared, Ned saw that Stannis wore a crown of red gold with points fashioned in the shape of flames. His belt was studded with garnets and yellow topaz, and a great square-cut ruby was set in the hilt of the sword he wore on one hip, on his other lay Foebreaker. Robert’s hammer… Otherwise his dress was plain: studded leather jerkin over quilted doublet, worn boots, breeches of brown rough-spun. The device on his sun-yellow banner showed a red heart surrounded by a blaze of orange fire.. Even more curious was his standard-bearer—a woman, garbed all in reds, face shadowed within the deep hood of her scarlet cloak. Ned was eerily reminded of Tetra when he saw her.

A red priestess, Ned thought, wondering. The sect was numerous and powerful in the Free Cities and the distant east, but there were few in the Seven Kingdoms. He had never known Stannis to be a religious man. If anything the man despised the Gods. Ned wondered what power she held that might make Stannis heed her.

“Prince Stark,” Stannis Baratheon said with chill courtesy as he reined up. He inclined his head, balder than Ned remembered. “I was surprised to hear you were not dead.”

“Not quite as surprised as my wives were, Your Grace,” Ned returned.

“I received your letter.” Stannis informed him. “I find it strange that you would declare me king on one day, let your son crown himself on the next, then join my brother the day after that.”

“I haven’t joined Renly.”

“Then you were merely out for a stroll?”

“I had hoped to talk to you both, to stop you from making a terrible mistake.”

Stannis clenched his jaw. “I am not the one who needs talking to. Renly is in the wrong.”

“If you and your brother were to put aside your quarrel—”

“I have no quarrel with Renly, should he prove dutiful. I am his elder, and his king. I want only what is mine by rights. Renly owes me loyalty and obedience. I mean to have it. From him, and from these other lords.”

“This could have all been avoided if you had told me what you and Jon Arryn had been doing from the start.”

“I should have been Robert’s Hand.”

“That was your brother’s will. I never wanted it.”

“Yet you took it. That which should have been mine.”

“Is that you, brother?” a cheerful voice called out behind them. Ned glanced over his shoulder as Renly’s palfrey picked her way through the stumps. The younger Baratheon was splendid in his green velvet doublet and satin cloak trimmed in vair. The crown of golden roses girded his temples, jade stag’s head rising over his forehead, long black hair spilling out beneath. Jagged chunks of black diamond studded his swordbelt, and a chain of gold and emeralds looped around his neck.

Renly had chosen a woman to carry his banner as well, though Brienne hid face and form behind plate armor that gave no hint of her sex. Atop her twelve-foot lance, the crowned stag pranced black-on-gold as the wind off the sea rippled the cloth.

His brother’s greeting was curt. “Lord Renly.”

“King Renly. I hardly recognised you, Stannis.”

Stannis frowned. “Who else should it be?”

Renly gave an easy shrug. “When I saw that standard, I could not be certain. Whose banner do you bear?”

“Mine own.”

The red-clad priestess spoke up. “The king has taken for his sigil the fiery heart of the Lord of Light.”

Renly seemed amused by that. “All for the good. If we both use the same banner, the battle will be terribly confused.”

Ned said, “Let us hope there will be no battle. We three share a common foe who would destroy us all given the chance.”

Stannis studied him, unsmiling. “The Iron Throne is mine by rights. All those who deny that are my foes.”

“The whole of the realm denies it, brother,” said Renly. “Old men deny it with their death rattle, and unborn children deny it in their mothers’ wombs. They deny it in Dorne and they deny it on the Wall. No one wants you for their king. Sorry.”

Stannis clenched his jaw, his face taut. “I swore I would never treat with you while you wore your traitor’s crown. Would that I had kept to that vow.”

“This is folly,” Ned said sternly. “Lord Tywin sits at Harrenhal with twenty thousand swords and the Gods only know how many dragons. The remnants of the Kingslayer’s army have regrouped at the Golden Tooth, another Lannister host gathers beneath the shadow of Casterly Rock, and Cersei and her son hold King’s Landing and your precious Iron Throne. You both name yourselves king, yet the kingdoms bleed, and no one lifts a sword to defend it but my son. You shame Robert’s memory.”

Both Renly and Stannis shifted uncomfortably in their saddles at the mention of Robert. “When Robert was in his cups, he would often say how you were his favourite brother.” Stannis clenched his teeth.

“And Robert was often in his cups.” Renly added. “Now Robert is gone and we are still here.”

There was the truth of it. Ned realised he had probably been the worst person to try and bring the two brothers together. The only thing that united Stannis and Renly was their jealousy of him. That Robert had preferred him to them.

“If you have proposals to make, make them,” Stannis said brusquely, “or I will be gone.”

“Very well,” said Renly. “I propose that you dismount, bend your knee, and swear me your allegiance.”

Stannis choked back rage. “That you shall never have.”

“You served Robert, why not me?”

“Robert was my elder brother. You are the younger.”

“Younger, bolder, and far more comely...”

“…and a thief and a usurper besides.”

Renly shrugged. “The Targaryens called Robert usurper. He seemed to be able to bear the shame. So shall I.”

“Act your age!” Ned snapped. “Anyone would think you were children from your manner now. Yet you both claim to be kings? If you were sons of mine, I would bang your heads together and lock you in a bedchamber until you remembered that you were brothers.”

Stannis frowned at him. “You presume too much, Prince Stark. I am the rightful king, something you yourself declared, and your son no less a traitor than my brother here. His day will come as well.”

“You are threatening my son.” Ned stated, his voice soft as thunder. “My bannermen claimed him king when the realm thought I was dead. Had I been there, It wouldn’t have happened.”

“But it did.” Stannis interrupted. “And that treason will require an answer no matter what.”

“You may threaten the closest thing you have to an ally as much as you want, but it changes nothing.” Renly said. “You may well have the better claim, Stannis, but I still have the larger army.” Renly’s hand slid inside his cloak. Stannis saw, and reached at once for the hilt of his sword, but before he could draw steel his brother produced... a peach. “Would you like one, brother?” Renly asked, smiling. “From Highgarden. You’ve never tasted anything so sweet, I promise you.” He took a bite. Juice ran from the corner of his mouth.

Does he ever stop playing games?

“I did not come here to eat fruit.” Stannis was fuming.

“My lords!” Ned said. “We ought to be hammering out the terms of an alliance, not trading taunts.”

“A man should never refuse to taste a peach,” Renly said as he tossed the stone away. “He may never get the chance again. Life is short, Stannis. Remember what the Starks say. Winter is coming.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I did not come here to be threatened, either.”

“Nor were you,” Renly snapped back. “When I make threats, you’ll know it. If truth be told, I’ve never liked you, Stannis, but you are my own blood, and I have no wish to slay you. So if it is Storm’s End you want, take it... as a brother’s gift. As Robert once gave it to me, I give it to you.”

“It is not yours to give. It is mine by rights.” His hand rested on Foebreaker. “Like this hammer, passed down from lord to heir for thousands of years. It is the very symbol of Baratheon legitimacy. And it obeys me.”

Sighing, Renly half turned in the saddle. “What am I to do with this brother of mine, Brienne? He refuses my peach, he refuses my castle, he even shunned my wedding…”

“We both know your wedding was a mummer’s farce. A year ago you were scheming to make the girl one of Robert’s whores.”

“A year ago I was scheming to make the girl Robert’s queen,” Renly said, “but what does it matter? The minotaur got Robert and I got Margaery. You’ll be pleased to know she came to me a maid.” Sansa had an almost imperceptible smirk at that.

“In your bed she’s like to die that way.”

“Oh, I expect I’ll get a son on her within the year. Pray, how many sons do you have, Stannis? Oh, yes—none.” Renly smiled innocently. “As to your daughter, I understand. If my wife looked like yours, I’d send my fool to service her as well.”

“Enough!” Stannis roared. “I will not be mocked to my face, do you hear me? I will not!” He yanked his longsword from its scabbard. The steel gleamed strangely bright in the sunlight, now red, now yellow, now blazing white. The air around it seemed to shimmer, as if from heat.

Fang’s hackles raised and his head dropped low, but Brienne moved between the brothers, her own blade in hand. “Put up your steel!” she shouted at Stannis.

Cersei is laughing herself breathless, Ned thought wearily.

Stannis pointed his shining sword at his brother. “I am not without mercy,” thundered he who was notoriously without mercy. “Nor do I wish to sully Lightbringer with a brother’s blood. For the sake of the mother who bore us both, I will give you this night to rethink your folly, Renly. Strike your banners and come to me before dawn, and I will grant you Storm’s End and your old seat on the council and even name you my heir until a son is born to me. Otherwise, I shall destroy you.”

Renly laughed. “Stannis, that’s a very pretty sword, I’ll grant you, but I think the glow off it has ruined your eyes. Look across the fields, brother. Can you see all those banners?”

“Do you think a few bolts of cloth will make you king?”

“Tyrell dragons and Tyrell swords will make me king. Rowan and Tarly and Caron will make me king, with axe and mace and warhammer. Tarth arrows and Penrose lances, Fossoway, Cuy, Mullendore, Estermont, Selmy, Hightower, Oakheart, Crane, Caswell, Blackbar, Morrigen, Beesbury, Shermer, Dunn, Footly... even House Florent, your own wife’s brothers and uncles, they will make me king. All the chivalry of the south rides with me, and that is the least part of my power. My foot is coming behind, a hundred thousand swords and spears and pikes. And you will destroy me? With what, pray? You have dragons? I have more. And your paltry rabble I see there huddled under the castle walls? I’ll call them five thousand and be generous, codfish lords and onion knights and sellswords. Half of them are like to come over to me before the battle starts. You have fewer than four hundred horse, my scouts tell me—freeriders in boiled leather who will not stand an instant against armored lances. I do not care how seasoned a warrior you think you are, Stannis, that host of yours won’t survive the first charge of my vanguard.”

“We shall see, brother.” Some of the light seemed to go out of the world when Stannis slid his sword back into its scabbard. “Come the dawn, we shall see.”

“I hope your new god’s a merciful one, brother.”

Stannis snorted and galloped away, disdainful. The red priestess lingered a moment behind. “Look to your own sins, Lord Renly,” she said as she wheeled her horse around. She locked eyes with Ned for a moment before she turned. It felt like she was staring into his soul. There was recognition in her eyes before she galloped away.

Ned and Renly returned together to the camp where his thousands waited their return. “That was amusing, if not terribly profitable,” he commented. “I wonder where I can get a sword like that? Well, doubtless Loras will make me a gift of it after the battle. It grieves me that it must come to this.”

“You have a cheerful way of grieving,” said Ned, whose distress was not feigned.

“Do I?” Renly shrugged. “So be it. Stannis was never the most cherished of brothers, I confess.”

“Your brother is the lawful heir.”

“While he lives,” Renly admitted. “Though it’s a fool’s law, wouldn’t you agree? Why the oldest son, and not the best-fitted? The crown will suit me, as it never suited Robert and would not suit Stannis. I have it in me to be a great king, strong yet generous, clever, just, diligent, loyal to my friends and terrible to my enemies, yet capable of forgiveness, patient—”

“—humble?” Ned rolled his eyes.

Renly laughed. “You must allow a king some flaws.”

Ned felt very tired. It had all been for nothing. The Baratheon brothers would drown each other in blood while his family faced the Lannisters alone, and nothing he could say or do would stop it.I am sorry Robert, your brothers wouldn’t listen to me.

Their camp was well sited atop a low stony ridge that ran from north to south. It was far more orderly than the sprawling encampment on the Mander, though only a quarter as large. When he’d learned of his brother’s assault on Storm’s End, Renly had split his forces. His great mass of foot he had left behind at Bitterbridge with his young queen, his wagons, carts, draft animals, and all his cumbersome siege machinery, while Renly himself led his knights and freeriders in a swift dash east atop his dragon.

Renly in his foolishness and haste to face his brother had outdistanced his supply lines, left food and forage days behind with all his wagons and mules and oxen. He had to come to battle soon, or starve.

Ned sent Aly and Sansa away while he accompanied Renly back to the royal pavilion at the heart of the encampment. Inside the walls of green silk, his captains and lords bannermen were waiting to hear word of the parley. “My brother has not changed,” their young king told them as Brienne unfastened his cloak and lifted the gold-and-jade crown from his brow. “Castles and courtesies will not appease him, he must have blood. Well, I am of a mind to grant his wish.”

“Your Grace, I see no need for battle here,” Lord Mathis Rowan put in. “The castle is strongly garrisoned and well provisioned, Ser Cortnay Penrose is a seasoned commander, and the trebuchet has not been built that could breach the walls of Storm’s End.”

“He has a dragon.” A Fossoway interjected. “And they’ve broken many a castle in the past.”

“You think Storm’s End has no defence against dragons?” Ned cut in. “My ancestor Brandon the Builder helped construct that castle to defy the power of the Gods. One dragon will not breach those walls.”

“Prince Stark is right.” Rowan continued. “Let Lord Stannis have his siege. He will find no joy in it, and whilst he sits cold and hungry and profitless, we will take King’s Landing.”

“And have men say I feared to face Stannis?”

“Only fools will say that,” Lord Mathis argued.

Renly looked to the others. “What say you all?”

“I say that Stannis is a danger to you,” Lord Randyll Tarly declared. “Leave him unblooded and he will only grow stronger, while your own power is diminished by battle. The Lannisters will not be beaten in a day. By the time you are done with them, Lord Stannis may be as strong as you... or stronger.”

Others chorused their agreement. The king looked pleased. “We shall fight, then.”

“If you are set on battle, my purpose here is done.” Ned said.

“You must stay.” Renly seated himself on a camp chair.

Ned stiffened. “I had hoped to help you make a peace, Renly. I will not help you make a war.”

Renly gave a shrug. “I daresay we’ll prevail without your dragons. I do not mean for you to take part in the battle, only to watch it.”

“I’ve seen more battles than you’ve seen years, boy-”

“Then you shall have an experienced eye,” Renly said, “You shall see what befalls rebels with your own eyes, so your son can hear it from your own lips.” He turned away to make his dispositions. “Lord Mathis, you shall lead the center of my main battle. Bryce, you’ll have the left. The right is mine. Lord Estermont, you shall command the reserve.”

“I shall not fail you, Your Grace,” Lord Estermont replied.

Lord Mathis Rowan spoke up. “Who shall have the van?”

“Your Grace,” said Ser Jon Lossoway, “I beg the honor.”

“Beg all you like,” said Ser Guyard the Green, “by rights it should be one of the seven who strikes the first blow.”

“It takes more than a pretty cloak to charge a shield wall,” Randyll Tarly announced. “I was leading Mace Tyrell’s van when you were still sucking on your mother’s teat, Guyard.”

A clamor filled the pavilion, as other men loudly set forth their claims. The knights of summer, Ned thought. Renly raised a hand. “Enough, my lords. If I had a dozen vans, all of you should have one, but the greatest glory by rights belongs to the greatest knight and dragonrider. Ser Loras shall strike the first blow.”

“With a glad heart, Your Grace.” The Knight of Flowers knelt before the king. “Grant me your blessing, and a knight to ride beside me with your banner. Let the stag and rose go to battle side by side.”

Renly glanced about him. “Brienne.”

“Your Grace?” She was still armored in her blue steel, though she had taken off her helm. The crowded tent was hot, and sweat plastered limp yellow hair to her broad, homely face. “My place is at your side. I am your sworn shield…”

“One of seven,” the king reminded her. “Never fear, four of your fellows will be with me in the fight.”

Brienne dropped to her knees. “If I must part from Your Grace, grant me the honor of arming you for battle.”

“Granted,” Renly said. “Now leave me, all of you. Even kings must rest before a battle.”

Dusk was falling when Ned left the pavilion. Ser Robar Royce fell in beside him. He knew him slightly—one of Bronze Yohn’s sons, comely in a rough-hewn way, a tourney warrior of some renown. Renly had gifted him with a rainbow cloak and a suit of blood-red armor, and named him one of his seven. “You are a long way from the Vale, ser,” Ned told him.

“And you far from Winterfell, Prince Stark.”

“I know what brought me here, but why have you come? This is not your battle, no more than it is mine.”

“I made it my battle when I made Renly my king.”

“Your father is bannermen to House Arryn.”

“My lord father owes Lady Lysa fealty, as does his heir. A second son must find glory where he can.” Ser Robar shrugged. “A man grows weary of tourneys.” He paused for a moment. “About my father though… He was grieved to hear of your death.”

Ned had known Yohn since he was a boy, he was a close friend. “I sent letters to the Vale upon my return.”

“Doubtless, news of your return made him very happy.”

“Happy enough to move from his mountain keep I hope.”

—————————

It was the Hour of the Wolf when Ned went back to Renly, the candles within his pavilion made the shimmering silken walls seem to glow. Two of the Rainbow Guard stood sentry at the door to the royal pavilion. The green light shone strangely against the purple plums of Ser Parmen’s surcoat, and gave a sickly hue to the sunflowers that covered every inch of Ser Emmon’s enameled yellow plate. Long silken plumes flew from their helms, and rainbow cloaks draped their shoulders.

Within, Ned found Brienne armoring the king for battle while the Lords Tarly and Rowan spoke of dispositions and tactics. It was pleasantly warm inside, the heat shimmering off the coals in a dozen small iron braziers.

“I must speak with you, Renly,” Ned said, trying to find some way to avoid this foolishness.

“In a moment, Ned,” Renly replied. Brienne fit backplate to breastplate over his gambeson. The king’s armor was a deep green, the green of leaves in a summer wood, so dark it drank the candlelight. Gold highlights gleamed from inlay and fastenings like distant fires in that wood, winking every time he moved. “Pray continue, Lord Mathis.”

“Your Grace,” Mathis Rowan said with a sideways glance at Ned. “As I was saying, our plans are well drawn up. Why wait for daybreak? Sound the advance.”

“And have it said that I won by treachery, with an unchivalrous attack? Dawn was the chosen hour.”

“Chosen by Stannis,” Randyll Tarly pointed out. “He’d have us charge into the teeth of the rising sun. We’ll be half-blind.”

“Only until first shock,” Renly said confidently. “Ser Loras will break them on the back of his dragon, and after that it will be chaos.” Renly had seemingly forgotten that Baelys was thrice the size of Blackthorn, and Stannis was an experienced dragonrider, while Loras was greener than summer grass. “When my brother falls, see that no insult is done to his corpse. He is my own blood, I will not have his head paraded about on a spear. Though I would like that pretty sword of his.” He chuckled.

“And if he yields?” Lord Tarly asked.

“Yields?” Lord Rowan laughed. “When Mace Tyrell laid siege to Storm’s End, Stannis ate rats rather than open his gates.”

“I well remember.” Renly lifted his chin to allow Brienne to fasten his gorget in place. “Near the end, Ser Gawen Wylde and three of his knights tried to steal out a postern gate to surrender. Stannis caught them and ordered them flung from the walls with catapults. I can still see Gawen’s face as they strapped him down. He had been our master-at-arms…”

Lord Rowan appeared puzzled. “No men were hurled from the walls. I would surely remember that.”

“Maester Cressen told Stannis that we might be forced to eat our dead, and there was no gain in flinging away good meat...” Renly stared off into space for a few moments, then pushed back his hair. Brienne bound it with a velvet tie and pulled a padded cap down over his ears, to cushion the weight of his helm. “Thanks to the Onion Knight we were never reduced to dining on corpses, but it was a close thing. Too close for Ser Gawen, who died in his cell.”

“Your Grace.” Ned had waited patiently, but time grew short. “I will not wait all night.”

Renly nodded. “See to your battles, my lords... oh, and if Barristan Selmy is at my brother’s side, I want him spared.”

“There’s been no word of Ser Barristan since Joffrey cast him out,” Lord Rowan objected.

“I know that old man. He needs a king to guard, or who is he? Yet he never came to me, and Ned says he is not with Robb Stark at Riverrun. Where else but with Stannis?”

“As you say, Your Grace. No harm will come to him.” The lords bowed deeply and departed.

“Say your say, Ned,” Renly said. Brienne swept his cloak over his broad shoulders. It was cloth-of-gold, heavy, with the crowned stag of Baratheon picked out in flakes of jet.

“You do not need to do this.”

“Even the most foolish man knows to put armour on before a battle.” Renly laughed.

“You battle your brother when you should be fighting the Lannisters.” Ned countered. “What is that if not foolish?”

Renly fixed his gaze at Ned through the mirror that stood in front of him. “I enjoy you Ned, but must I remind you, you’re talking to a king?”

“A king? Maybe.” Ned said, sourly. “A preening child? Definitely.”

“You are sorely mistaken if you think insulting me is the path to agreement.”

“Stannis is your brother!” Ned thundered. “His blood flows in your veins, just as yours does in his. You are family. Do you think this is what Robert would have wanted you to do?”

Renly’s gaze hardened then. “Robert wouldn’t have cared and it matters not. Robert is dead. And you miss him more than Stannis and I combined I feel.” Brienne brought the king’s gauntlets and greathelm, crowned with golden antlers that would add a foot and a half to his height. “The time for talk is done. Stannis has chosen his fate.” Renly pulled a lobstered green-and-gold gauntlet over his left hand, while Brienne knelt to buckle on his belt, heavy with the weight of longsword and dagger.

“He is your brother…” Ned began when a sudden gust of wind flung open the door of the tent. All Ned’s hairs stood on end. He thought he glimpsed movement, but when he turned his head, it was only the king’s shadow shifting against the silken walls. He heard Renly begin a jest, his shadow moving, lifting its sword, black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong, and then Ned saw Renly’s sword still in its scabbard, sheathed still, but the shadowsword…

“Cold,” said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat.

“Your Gr— no!” cried Brienne the Blue when she saw that evil flow, sounding as scared as any little girl. The king stumbled into her arms, a sheet of blood creeping down the front of his armor, a dark red tide that drowned his green and gold. More candles guttered out. Renly tried to speak, but he was choking on his own blood. His legs collapsed, and only Brienne’s strength held him up. She threw back her head and screamed, wordless in her anguish.

The shadow. Magic. The Red Priestess, Ned knew in his heart. She must have cast a spell. It seemed Renly hadn’t been using the magical defences that the Starks practiced.

Only a few instants passed before Robar Royce and Emmon Cuy came bursting in, though it felt like half the night. A pair of men-at-arms crowded in behind with torches. When they saw Renly in Brienne’s arms, and her drenched with the king’s blood, Ser Robar gave a cry of horror.

“Wicked woman!” screamed Ser Emmon, he of the sun-flowered steel. “Away from him, you vile creature!”

“Gods be good, Brienne, why?” asked Ser Robar.

Brienne looked up from her king’s body. The rainbow cloak that hung from her shoulders had turned red where the king’s blood had soaked into the cloth. “I… I…”

“You’ll die for this.” Ser Emmon snatched up a long-handled battleaxe from the weapons piled near the door. “You’ll pay for the king’s life with your own!”

“NO!” Ned screamed, finding his voice, but it was too late, the blood madness was on them, and they rushed forward with shouts that drowned his words.

Brienne moved fast snatching Renly’s sword from its scabbard and raised it to catch Emmon’s axe on the downswing. A spark flashed blue-white as steel met steel with a rending crash, and Brienne sprang to her feet, the body of the dead king thrust rudely aside. Ser Emmon stumbled over it as he tried to close, and Brienne’s blade sheared through the wooden haft to send his axehead spinning. Another man thrust a flaming torch at her back, but the rainbow cloak was too sodden with blood to burn. Brienne spun and cut, and torch and hand went flying. Flames crept across the carpet. The maimed man began to scream. Ser Emmon dropped the axe and fumbled for his sword. The second man-at-arms lunged, Brienne parried, and their swords danced and clanged against each other. When Emmon Cuy came wading back in, Brienne was forced to retreat, yet somehow she held them both at bay. On the ground, Renly’s head rolled sickeningly to one side, and a second mouth yawned wide, the blood coming from him now in slow pulses.

Ser Robar had hung back, uncertain, but now he was reaching for his hilt. “Robar, listen.” Ned seized his arm. “You do her wrong, it was not her. Hear me, it was Stannis. I swear it, on my honour as a Stark, it was Stannis who killed him.”

“Stannis? How?”

“Sorcery, dark magic, there was a shadow, a shadow with a sword, I swear it, I saw. Are you blind, the girl loved him!” Ned glanced back, saw the second guardsman fall, his blade dropping from limp fingers. Outside there was shouting. More angry men would be bursting in on them any instant, Ned knew. “She is innocent, Robar. You have my word. Your father never knew me to be a liar. Give me time to get her away.”

That resolved him. “I will hold them,” Ser Robar said. “Get her away.” He turned and went out. The fire had reached the wall and was creeping up the side of the tent. Ser Emmon was pressing Brienne hard, him in his enameled yellow steel and her in wool. He had forgotten Ned, until Ned caught his sword in his metal hand and punched the knight so hard he dented his helm. Ser Emmon flopped in an ungainly heap to the floor. “Brienne, with me,” Ned commanded. The girl was not slow to see the chance. A slash, and the green silk parted. They stepped out into darkness and the chill of dawn. Loud voices came from the other side of the pavilion. “This way,” Ned urged, “and slowly. We must not run, or they will ask why. Walk easy, as if nothing were amiss.”

Brienne thrust her sword blade through her belt and fell in beside Ned. The night air smelled of rain. Behind them, the king’s pavilion was well ablaze, flames rising high against the dark. No one made any move to stop them. Men rushed past them, shouting of fire and murder and sorcery. Others stood in small groups and spoke in low voices. A few were praying, and one young squire was on his knees, sobbing openly.

Renly’s battle lines were already coming apart as the rumors spread from mouth to mouth. The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten the immense mass of Storm’s End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind.

“I never held him but as he died,” Brienne said quietly as they walked through the spreading chaos. Her voice sounded as if she might break at any instant. “He was laughing one moment, and suddenly the blood was everywhere... I do not understand. Did you see, did you…?”

“I saw a shadow. I thought it was Renly’s shadow at the first, but it was his brother’s.”

“Lord Stannis?”

“I felt magic in the air.” One of the few times Ned wished he’d brought Tetra with him. She would have dispelled the shadow warrior in an instant.

It made sense enough for Brienne. “I will kill him,” the tall homely girl declared. “With my lord’s own sword, I will kill him. I swear it. I swear it. I swear it.”

Sansa and Aly were waiting by the dragons, clearly having been roused by the ruckus. “Father, the camp has gone mad,” Sansa said saw them. “Lord Renly, is he—” She stopped suddenly, staring at Brienne and the blood that drenched her.

“Dead, but not by our hands.”

“The battle—” Aly began.

“There will be no battle.” Ned went to Snowsong and began to climb into her saddle. “Brienne, you’ve probably dreamed of riding a dragon, I’d recommend mine or Aly’s. You cannot stay here.”

“I have a horse, my armor—”

“Leave them. We must be well away before they think to look for us. We were both with your king when he was killed. That will not be forgotten.” Wordless, Brienne turned and did as she was bid, climbing up Snowsong’s saddle to seat behind Ned. “Wrap one of the harnesses around yourself,” Ned told her as Sansa and Aly both went to their dragons.

With a mighty roar Snowsong leapt into the air followed by her daughters. Together they flew, fleeing the rising sun and the break of dawn.